Smelling like pee (Read 2768 times)

Sometimes I smell like pee after running. I did some googling and found that it is the result of running out of carb and the body starting to break down protein, making me smell like the public restroom. Now I'm confused. I thought when you run out of carbs you will burn fat and hit the wall, and it happens past 20 miles or so? I stank even on short runs (<10 miles), could I have been out of carbs so quickly? It was hard for me to believe as I'm always on the giant-bowl-of-rice-every-meal diet. Could this be a hydration issue? I'm not as concerned about being olfactorily offensive as not fueling my running properly.

Okay, I've smelled like ammonia after a run but never would have said I smelled like pee (well, unless I actually did pee myself during the run) - but probably the same thing because when I looked it up online they had the same reason.

That made me laugh. Ahhhhh...runners have problems that the outside world could never guess existed!!

Sorry, and I have no idea now to help you solve that problem. I do hope it's not anything to serious and that you can get it figured out.

I stink pretty bad after I work out, but I would say it's more musty then urine like...either way if I try to sit on the couch after a long run without taking a shower, just for a minute to rest my legs, my husband gives me the evil eye and points upstairs.

Definitely smelt of ammonia, whether it really smells like pee is probably subjective unless there's some kind of standard to rate and compare pee. I don't stink on every run, but often enough that I'm offended by my own odor on some runs (most people don't notice their own BO because they're so used to it, so I reason that if I find it smelly then I must have really stunk).

I don't track my diet much... (laziness). I normally run at night, about 2 hours after dinner. Typical lunch and dinner are giant bowl of white rice with some veggies and some meat. If anything, people think I eat too much carb. My weight has also been stable, so I assume that's an indication that I'm eating enough to fuel my running. I run anywhere from 3 to 13 miles, easy to medium effort. My weekend long run is in the morning around 13 to <20 miles, also easy/medium effort. On the occasions that I tried to push harder it would be in the shorter runs. I have not experienced anything that resembled bonking such as extreme fatigue, large drop in pace, or wanting to lie down and sleep/die...etc. That's why I'm not exactly buying the explanation that I'm out of carb (that is unless running out of carb does not always lead to bonking?)

When a runner bonks, he/she has run out of carb and switched to burning fat, but that doesn't mean the body wasn't burning any fat at all prior to bonking, is that right? So with regard to ammonia being a by product of using protein, does the body only switch to protein after carb is used up? Or does the body rely on both when both are available? Maybe my body just like to burn protein normally?

I also read somewhere that this maybe a dehydration issue, which could be the case since I usually only drink before and after the run if I'm running less than 2 hours (~13 miles), although I haven't found an adequate explanation on how that leads to the ammonia smell. I found some discussions on this on body-building and running forums, so this does not seem to be uncommon, and I'm not dying from some strange unusual illnesses, so this is more a curiosity than a problem I guess.

xor

posted: 3/21/2012 at 2:52 PM

Yeah, y'all are trying too hard to decide whether it is ammonia or "pee". You are smelling the same stuff.

"Urine is sterile until it reaches the urethra where the epithelial cells lining the urethra are colonized by facultatively anaerobic Gram negative rods and cocci.[4] Subsequent to elimination from the body, urine can acquire strong odors due to bacterial action,[citation needed] and in particular the release of asphyxiating ammonia from the breakdown of urea."

Are you sure it's not your clothes? All my tech stuff smells vaguely of cat pee and mold once I get them wet with sweat. My hats are the worst.

They smell clean when I headed out the door (I wouldn't have put them on otherwise). You're saying the shirt enhances the sweat odor somehow? hmmm, if it happened to you I guess it could happen to me too. How did you deal with it? More detergent?

They smell clean when I headed out the door (I wouldn't have put them on otherwise). You're saying the shirt enhances the sweat odor somehow? hmmm, if it happened to you I guess it could happen to me too. How did you deal with it? More detergent?

"More detergent" won't remove perma-stink. You can try, not necessarily in this order:

a "sport wash" detergent, such as Penguin; or

a debit card.

"I want you to pray as if everything depends on it, but I want you to prepare yourself as if everything depends on you."